"What if I does lose a few peltries when they're bringing such a good price down in St.Louey?
Can't I afford to do it, when there's a gal in the matter ?" He resumed his walk as slowly and thoughtfully as before, muttering to himself.
"If I go, I goes alone; least I don't go with that Teddy, for he'd be sartin to lose my ha'r as sure as we got onto a trail.

There's no calc'latin' the blunders of _such_ a man.

How he has saved his own scalp to this time is more nor I can tell, or himself neither, for that matter, I guess.

I've been on many a trail-hunt alone, and if I goes--if I goes, why, _in course_ I does!" he added, impetuously.
The resolution once taken seemed to afford him unusual pleasure, as it does with us all when the voice of conscience is a monitor that is heeded.

He was tramping toward the west, and now that the matter was decided in his own mind, he paused again, as if he could better debate other matters that must in the circumstances necessarily present themselves.
"In the first place, there's no use of going any further on _this_ track, for I ain't gettin' any nigher the gal, that's pretty sartin.
From what that Teddy told me of his travels, it can't be that she's anywhere in these parts, for if she war, he couldn't have helped l'arning something of her in all this time.